Side Trip to Kathmandu (A Sidney Marsh Murder Mystery Book 3)

by Marie Moore

  A twig broke on the path and I could hear Lucy’s voice chattering as they approached the temple.

  Then Justin diffused the tension that had suddenly risen between us by turning back outside to the carved wall and launching into a lengthy academic description of the process involved in building the sandstone temples entirely without mortar.

  I was relieved. The dry lecture broke the spell and gave me time to regain my composure. I stepped back into the sunlight, but well away from him. I had no personal interest in Justin whatsoever and was relieved that the charged moment had passed so easily. This man was really smooth, not my type at all. I didn’t really even like him and I did not trust him in the least.

  There was something disturbing about Justin. I couldn’t identify exactly what bothered me. He seemed to be a successful, sophisticated professional, but I sensed that there was something deeply wrong inside somewhere. Something about him did not ring true.

  Brooke had told us that Justin came from an honorable, aristocratic family of vintners from the Provence region of France. Though she had only met him within the last year through his neighbor Lucy, Brooke seemed fond of him. And Brooke is usually a pretty good judge of character. Maybe I was wrong in my impression.

  As he continued to talk, completely impersonally, I began to doubt myself. I wondered if what I thought had just occurred between us had really happened at all, or if it was just a product of an overactive imagination, brought on by the heat, the lurid carvings, and the strangeness of the setting. I decided my uneasiness might have been unfounded, an overreaction on my part.

  Thankfully, Lucy and Brooke drew near just then, and Lucy’s bright conversation and Brooke’s wry comments about the activities depicted in stone made us all laugh. We started toward the exit and the van. I was walking with Brooke, with Lucy and Justin following. I could feel his eyes on my back and even though I knew it seemed silly, I resolved to somehow switch seats when we arrived at the car park.

  “I wish Jay had been here this morning, don’t you, Sidney?” Brooke said. “What a kick he would get out of all this. Let’s see if there’s a gift shop so we can buy him a book of photos.”

  “Or postcards to send to his friends,” Lucy suggested. “although photos of these figures might not be allowed through the mail.”

  When we got to the meet point, Adam was not there, but Jasmine was, and she was angry. She said he had left earlier in a taxi. She was insulted, I think, that he apparently felt he had more important things to do than stroll through the sexually charged complex arm in arm with her.

  I had wondered why she’d turned up bright and early to go on the tour when her usual pattern was to sleep in and skip the excursions. Once I saw the stone carvings I understood what had prompted her participation.

  We didn’t need to find a shop after all, for vendors were hawking all sorts of souvenirs near the exit. At Brooke’s urging, we chose an assortment for Jay, then loaded into the van to return to the hotel for lunch. I was especially happy that the tour had not lasted all day, for I was really worried about Jay and didn’t want to be away from him for too long. I had looked forward to this tour, but it had turned out not to be quite what I had expected, and I was glad it was over.

  #

  Things had improved by the time I got back to Jay’s room. He was no longer being brave. The “poor me” phase had set in, letting me know he was well on his way to recovery.

  “There you are!” he said. “Thank God you’re back! If the cholera didn’t kill me, I thought the boredom might. I couldn’t sleep anymore and so I just lay here, staring at the ceiling fan going round and round, wanting to die. The only sound was the swish of the fan and that terrible twangy music. I thought, ‘This is not how it’s supposed to be. I wasn’t meant to depart this life lying in a cheap hotel in India, listening to sitar music, watching a damn ceiling fan revolve.’ ”

  I laughed, “Well, I think you are going to make it now. You look tons better than you did this morning. Why don’t you grab a shower? Then we’ll get out of this room and have something simple for lunch. I’ll just wait right here in this chair until you’re ready. Call out if you need me, like if you start to faint or something.”

  He opened his mouth to say that he was too weak for lunch, but then had second thoughts, grabbed some clothes, and headed to the bathroom.

  I know him so well. Seeing him, hearing him, I could tell that the swoon was past.

  This illness had been real, though, and frightening. We were both relieved that it had not been more serious. No one was voicing it, but each of us was fully aware of just how bad it might have been.

  Over lunch, with no salad, buffet or ice this time, I gave Jay the souvenirs that the others had bought for him. He was delighted. Because it was so late, we were alone in the dining room. The others had already finished lunch.

  As expected, he loved the bawdy pictures and immediately planned who the recipients of the postcards would be.

  He was not so pleased with my mention of my encounter with Justin.

  “He came on to you, too? I thought I was the only one.”

  “Really, Jay? He hit on you?”

  “Yep. In Agra. I didn’t tell you because, well, just because.”

  “Because you weren’t totally sure that’s what he meant. Because he didn’t actually say anything that could be used against him. Because he just generally creeped you out.”

  “Yes. Exactly. Don’t like one thing about that sneaky dude. I think we both need to steer clear of Monsieur Justin from now on, Sidney. But he bears watching just the same. Sneaky. We need to keep an eye on him. He’s just the type to turn out to be a poisoner. If he wanted to take someone out, that’s the sort of sly method that would appeal to him.”

  By the middle of the afternoon, our little caravan was loaded up and moving on, headed back to the airport and Varanasi, the holy city of the Hindu, on the banks of the Ganges River.

  Chapter 15

  “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is,” said Jay, staring at the prone figure of what appeared to be a woman, wrapped in white muslin cloth and covered in orange marigolds. The body was being carried in a small procession that had blocked all traffic, including our van, entering Varanasi.

  The day was going to be a scorcher, and even though it was after the rains, dust lay thick on the road.

  She lay on a bamboo stretcher. A pink sari was tied to hold the flowers in place, keeping the petals from blowing away in the wind. The corpse was carried high on the shoulders of a group of mournful relatives moving slowly down the street in front of us.

  The sad little procession had brought what was already congested traffic to a standstill. We had been picked up at the airport by a large luxury van and were on our way into the city. The deceased was the first body we saw in Varanasi, but certainly not the last.

  “Because this is a holy city,” Mohit said, “people wish to bring the bodies of their loved ones to this place to commit their ashes to Mother Ganges, our holy river. Most of the bodies are burned on the crematory ghats, which are wide stones steps or platforms extending down from the city to the edge of the river. Soon you will see. The government built a crematorium there, but many people do not wish to use it and still prefer the traditional funeral pyres. For all time, it has been so. The waters of the Ganges cleanse the soul and guide the dead on the path toward heaven.”

  “You said some of the bodies are cremated,” Brooke asked. “Aren’t they all?”

  “No, madam,” Mohit replied. “Holy men, children, and victims of disease are not cremated. Their bodies go straight into the river.”

  Lucy visibly shuddered, asking, “Are there many of those?”

  “Yes, madam,” he answered, with one of his steady stares through his thick round glasses. “There are said to be about sixty thousand of those each year. We call them Ganga people.”

  “Moving on,” Jay said. “Enough of this grisly conversation. Too much talk of death today. Traffi
c is breaking up ahead. Let’s roll.”

  I agreed. Seeing the funeral procession had brought my thoughts back to Felix and his untimely demise. Poisoned! How could that have happened? How could he have ingested such a poison? Where did he get it? I had never heard of it before coming here.

  “Ah, the fruit of the suicide tree,” Mohit had said when I asked him earlier about the name of the poison. “Yes, yes, it grows in the South, the Kerala region. A lovely fragrant tree with white flowers and dark green leaves, but its seeds bring death. For this purpose, the seeds are ground and mixed in a spicy curry to hide the bitter taste. Many people die each year from this tree. Sometimes it is fed to young women who have brought shame on their families. Very sad. Very, very sad to pass to another life in this way.”

  It was unlikely that Felix had purposely or accidentally ingested such a poison to stop his heart. Obtaining a supply of it to poison either yourself or someone else would be relatively simple, Mohit said. It grows wild in the marshy areas of Southern India, where its fruit and seeds are easily obtained. Even here, in Northern India where it did not normally grow, it could likely be bought in the street markets. Everything else under the sun was for sale. Why not that?

  So someone must have either fed it to him in his food or drink or injected him with a concentration of it. Injection. That method of administration had just occurred to me. Did any evidence of injection show up in the autopsy report? I would have to find out.

  It was possible that Sharma already knew the answer to this question. When we reunited at the hotel I would have lots of questions for that fine gentleman, though I was not at all sure he would answer them. His whole treatment of us thus far, and particularly me, had been so high-handed and sly. In addition to his lies, his manner had been extremely chauvinistic. I deeply resented it.

  I remembered then that the poisoned candy at Brooke’s dinner that had prompted this whole tour had also been injected. I would have to find out exactly what that poison was, if she remembered from the chemical analysis.

  “Here we go,” Adam said, “finally moving again.”

  The procession veered off to the left, into a side street, and traffic inched along before picking up speed as the way cleared in front of us.

  In the city center, at Rahim’s signal, the driver of our van pulled to the edge of the street, stopped, and jumped out to open the doors.

  We crossed the dusty street, dodging people, cars, pedicabs, cows, and cow patties. Following Mohit’s lead, our group entered a narrow, twisting passageway between centuries-old stone buildings.

  I shuddered with horror and deep pity as we squeezed past people suffering from the effects of terrible diseases. Each struggled toward the river at his own pace, all hoping for relief of some kind from the holy waters. Lepers, victims of elephantiasis, polio, and blindness, all were moving in a slow, steady stream toward the healing waters of the Ganges. Oddly, these poor people did not seem to be terribly sad, but instead, hopeful.

  Rahim, now walking beside me in the narrow serpentine street offered this explanation: “For some, to die at the banks of Mother Ganges brings release, freeing the soul to heaven. For others, the waters bring healing. Tomorrow we will visit her at dawn, when everyone comes to drink the holy waters.”

  Varanasi or Benares, its English name, is one of the oldest living cities in the world. It is even mentioned in ancient texts and was first settled around three thousand years ago. Hindus believe it was founded by Lord Shiva, who is also known as the god of destruction. Shiva, one of the main Hindu gods, is depicted with a third eye on his forehead, a snake around his neck, and the holy river Ganges flowing from his matted hair.

  Emerging from the shadows of the overhanging buildings in the narrow lane, our little group came to an abrupt halt as the sunlit river scene came into view.

  “Astounding,” Adam said in a low voice just behind me. “Absolutely amazing.” I turned to reply but his gaze was on the panorama in front of us. Adam had spoken not to me, but to himself.

  It was astounding, unlike any riverfront I had ever seen.

  A teeming mass of people swarmed the ghats—the ancient steps—washing, bathing, meditating, with vendors selling candles and all sorts of religious objects. The canyon of the riverfront was lined with crumbling palaces of past rulers and temples dedicated to many of the hundreds of Hindu gods. Beyond the ghats, the Ganges flowed past it all. Everything looked terribly ancient.

  “C’est brun,” Justin said, gazing at the water, “I expected this holy river to be blue, not brown.”

  “It’s the pollution,” Adam said, “Millions of gallons of industrial waste and raw sewage are pumped into it every day. Yet the people drink from it. Look there.”

  He pointed to a man standing waist-deep in the swirling water. He dipped a cup brimming full, and held it toward the sky with both hands before draining it.

  “Somehow, it doesn’t kill them,” Adam said. “Gandhi was said to have carried Ganges water with him on his travels. I expect drinking the waters would put any one of us in the hospital.”

  “Well, let’s don’t just stand here gawking in this heat,” Brooke said. “Move forward, please, into the shade of that temple. Mohit can explain things there as well as here in the sun. Don’t you remember what Noel Coward said?”

  “I do,” said Lucy, fanning with a little paper fan she had bought, “ ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.’ It’s true.”

  The heat was intense, even in the shade of the temple walls, but I was so fascinated by what I saw before me that I’d barely noticed until now.

  Mohit gathered us ’round and began a lengthy explanation of the pantheon of Hindu gods and the beginnings of Indian history at the settlement on the banks of the river at Varanasi. He pointed out prominent temples and palaces and said that we would see more of the ancient city, including the crematory ghats, from the river the following morning.

  As he was talking, I spotted Justin pulling Rahim off to the side for a whispered conversation. With the end of Mohit’s speech came the realization that Justin and Jasmine were no longer with us. Looking back the way we had come, I caught sight of Jasmine’s bright dress just as the two of them disappeared into the alley between the temples.

  Jay had seen them leaving too.

  “Wonder where they’re headed?” he said. “Guess she’s giving Adam a little payback for dumping her at Khajuraho. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, babe, but I don’t think he cares one bit what Jasmine does.”

  I’d noticed. I’d definitely noticed.

  “I have to say that bailing out on Mohit’s spiel is tempting,” he went on, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief. “He knows his stuff but it’s hot and his long speeches are a lot to take in. I don’t intend to miss the visit to the silk shop at the end of the tour, though. Brooke says it’s fabulous. We go there next. Are you going to buy yourself a sari, Little Miss Tightwad? I think you should.”

  “Maybe. I’ve already bought one, remember? The silver and blue one? But if I do buy another, Jay, where would I wear it?”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s just something you should get as a remembrance of this trip. Maybe we’ll have an Indian dinner party when we’re back in New York. That could be fun. I already have my turban, but I might buy another.”

  Rahim led the way out through the maze of serpentine streets, murmuring “Look, madam, cow sits” when necessary to help us avoid stepping in a mess. This time Mohit brought up the rear, waving his stick and warning off over-eager salesmen.

  We were almost to the van when Jasmine and Justin reappeared, joining us with no explanation. S.L. Sharma was with them. He was carrying his bulging black briefcase, taking charge of the tour, and full of his usual baloney.

  #

  Brooke summoned us to her room that night after dinner. The new hotel had proven to be about in the same class as the last one, perhaps worse. For sure, it was not the luxury accommodation that Brooke usually booked. We speculat
ed that the powwow might be about the class of hotels.

  We were wrong.

  At Jay’s knock, she flung the door wide and welcomed us in. A room service table had been set up with drinks.

  “Come in, my dears, please,” she said with a wide smile. “Have a drink or some coffee, whatever you wish. Then make yourselves comfortable. We have a lot to discuss.”

  We chose drinks and took seats in the crowded room. The room was a bit better than ours, but it still looked like an American motel room from the 1960s, except for the exuberant Indian artwork and big ceiling fan. The fan was working hard to accompany the rattle of the air conditioner unit that wheezed away under the window.

  Brooke switched the air conditioner off.

  “There,” she said, “that’s better. Can’t stand that noise. If it gets too hot in here, I’ll turn it back on.”

  “Brooke,” Jay said, “I hope you don’t think our agency chose this hotel for you.”

  “No, no, of course not,” she said. “I know who chose it. I’m afraid we may have made a bit of a mistake in selecting Mr. Sharma to make our tour arrangements. It is somewhat surprising. He came highly recommended by Felix, who often visited India on business. The last two hotels haven’t turned out to be quite as expected, have they? But we’re here now, so we’ll just overlook the lumpy beds and thin towels and enjoy what we came to see.”

  Once again, Brooke had demonstrated what a good sport she can be. Brooke is a realist, not a whiner at all, and she makes the best of most situations. Her sunny attitude is one of the many things I admire about her.

  “I asked you to come tonight to discuss our friends, not our accommodations. Have you made any progress in identifying who my nemesis may be? You’ve had a little time to get to know your fellow travelers.”

  Jay and I exchanged glances.

  “I’m afraid we’ve made little progress, Brooke, beyond just impressions,” I said. “We have gathered no hard facts thus far that might point to any one person. But I want to say that I do not for one minute believe that Felix died as a result of accidental food poisoning. I think he was murdered. I think the original report was correct—death by cerbera odollam poisoning. I believe someone somehow gave it to him, he died, and then Sharma paid to have it hushed up. Sharma must have bribed someone to change the report and declare the first report a mistake.”